An eclectic exploration of the abiding elements of Jewish belief, covering major ethical, ritual, and theological topics. This guide to Jewish philosophical literacy is refreshingly versatile because Ariel (The Mystic Quest: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism, not reviewed) has no ideological investment in a particular Jewish denomination. What is served up here is a smorgasbord of the beliefs of Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform Jews, rather than polemics about any one interpretation of Jewish belief. We therefore learn about both the unknowable God of medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides and the equally transcendent God of the contemporary Reform thinker Eugene Borowitz. Ariel describes the ancient rabbinic sages' elaboration on the concept of the afterlife and the kabbalists' belief in the transmigration of souls. He outlines the modern adaptations of the concept of ``the chosen people'' by both secular cultural Zionists and diaspora pietists. Writing of the traditional 613 commandments, Ariel explains both the modern Orthodox integration of ritual practice and modernity, and the Reconstructionist invalidation of defunct Jewish ``folkways.'' A chapter on prayer examines the contemplative, personal prayer of the Hasidic masters as well as the growing impact of Zionism on the Reform movement's prayer book. Ariel, president of the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies, feels that an organic inconsistency is the one constant in the history of Jewish belief, that ``Jewish tradition promotes a surprisingly open and pluralistic notion of biblical truth.'' The constant evolution of belief from the biblical springboard remains the most significant of the author's ``Jewish sacred myths,'' which underlie all forms of Jewish belief. The evenhanded everything-and-everyone approach may alienate readers committed to one Jewish point of view, and the book has several unproven assumptions stated as facts—yet Ariel provides a remarkably rich and useful one-volume introduction to millennia of Jewish beliefs.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8052-4119-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Schocken
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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